Secret Sydney
Her harbour may bedazzle, her beaches may bare all, but Sydney ain't a city that gives up all her charms on the first (or even the second) date. It took doing, but Time Out
seduced Sin City into revealing some of her deepest, darkest and dirtiest secrets...
Wendy's Secret Garden
There's no paint, only plants. No canvas, only soil. No pencils or brushes, only the Sydney sunshine above. This Brett Whitely artwork can't be framed or priced, yet in grows in power by the day. Locals called it Wendy's secret garden and it was created by the widow of the man who painted the ‘optical erotica’ of the harbour beyond the wasteland at the foot of his Lavender Bay home. The land was derelict, tangled and overgrown, full of broken bottles, rotting mattresses and rubbish, a dead-end dump for surplus trains and derelict humanity: the end of the line. When Brett died in 1992, the widowed Wendy Whiteley dug in and channeled her grief into the garden. Sixteen years on, a vast, enchanting corner of Sydney exists: natives, exotics, herbs and towering fig trees run along winding gully paths while parrots, gulls, kookaburras, owls and wagtails chatter amidst the flowers and berries. Tucked away in the shadow of soulless office towers, it looks like a private garden, and it is – a private paen to love and loss but one performed in a spirit of renewal and now, blessedly, shared with all of Sydney.
Find it! It’s at Lavender St, Lavender Bay. Always open.
The 'lost city' under Oxford St
Pssst! One of Sydney’s most top-secret art grottoes and unique abandoned spaces has been reborn. The Paddington Reservoir, built 142 years ago, was decommissioned in 1914 and became a garage. In 1993, the servo’s roof caved-in, leaving the site derelict but for hordes of feral cats and a shadowy graffiti movement who under the cover of night filled the walls of the 1023-square-metre site with stunning frescoes and murals. Now, with almost $10 million worth of restoration work nearly complete, Time Out can reveal what will lurk within the new Paddington Reservoir Gardens: a stunning Romanesque sunken garden with a lake of contemplation at its centre and a hanging garden canopy around the perimeter and an eastern chamber left empty but for the wall art. This blank canvas ‘cultural precinct’ will, hopes City of Sydney, host markets, art and film festivals or retail. Look out for an Open Day in October and completion by summer.
Find it! Cnr Oxford & Oatley Sts, Paddington.
The moving walkway
Pssst! Stretching under the Domain car park is 207 metres of super-sexy, extremely stupendous, red-hot rubber travelator. “It was first built in 1960 by the Botanic Gardens Trust as a futuristic novelty,” says Mike Geuder, who rebuilt it in 1994. Moving at 0.67m per second, the travelator saves walkers a full three minutes. “It’s not a novelty, you should hear the complaints if it breaks down!” says Geuder. “It’s stayed pretty free of vandalism. The only marks on the walls are from skateboarders when they stack it. Idiots.” Once the longest walkway in the world, it’s since been trumped by Disneyland Paris, alas.
Find it! Enter via the stairs on the corner of College St and St Mary’s Rd.
Banger, mashed!
Pssst! Designed to “confuse, beguile and fascinate”, Still Life with Stone & Car – a boulder-mashed Ford Festiva by artist Jimmie Durham – has spawned many secret theses. It first appeared at the Opera House forecourt for the 2006 Biennale but moved to a roundabout in Walsh Bay last year for an outdoor sculpture display. The real secret? Where’d he get the boulder?
Find it! Hickson Rd & Pottinger St, Walsh Bay.
Pixies in Camperdown
Pssst! Secret murals painted by Pixie O’Harris, creator of Marmaduke the Possum and aunt of Rolf Harris, have emerged from the rubble of the old Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children. In the 1930s, appalled by the blank walls in recovery rooms at RACH, Pixie painted fairies and enchanted folk onto walls to lift the spirits of sick kids. Left to rot when the hospital shut in the 90s, they’ve now been painstakingly restored by developer Frasers Property.
Find it! Admissions Building, 30 Pyrmont Bridge Rd, Camperdown 3260. (02 9557 7111).
George in the Jungle
Pssst! George Gittoes, the cage-rattling, bullet-dodging auteur behind Soundtrack to War and Rampage, is having a secret screening of his new film, The Miscreants. It finds the Sydney-born maverick entering the forbidden zone of cinema, taking on Al-Qaeda in a mind-blowing mix of shock-doco and action drama. “All my life I’ve waged a war on war using creativity instead of bullets,” Gittoes told Time Out. “The Miscreants is an act of film-making defiance in the face of the Taliban’s bombing of video stores and film sets – instead of dodging their bullets, I’m now actually provoking the bastards.” This director’s cut has X-rated footage unlikely to survive Hollywood’s homogenisation, so be the first to see it.
Find it! Sydney Underground Film Festival Factory Theatre, Enmore Rd, Enmore. Thu Sep 11. 6pm. Festival passes $70. (02 9797 9428)
Secret Diaries Revealed
Pssst! Sydney’s bars and nightclubs are full of secrets – the cocktail bar oasis above the Hotel Hollywood, the five escape hatches in the Porterhouse, the shooting range under the old Zetland Hotel, the sneaky speakeasies bars above Una’s and Tabou, the semi-naked gold-painted dwarf waiter at De Nom – but new Bondi bar, the Rum Diaries has gone the whole hog with a genuine James Bond secret swivel-door bookcase leading from the backroom bar to secret offices! Bring on the sharks with lasers strapped to their heads!
Find it! Rum Diaries, 288 Bondi Rd, Bondi 2026. (02 9300 0440).
Terror of the 2D building!
Pssst! Sydney’s most elaborate optical illusion? Venture down the alley off Flinders St through to South Dowling St, to the back of its sole apartment block and look up – there’s a multi-storey 1940s apartment block thinner than a runway model in Milan! The secret here can be unlocked via an aerial view that reveals the building’s triangular shape and the rear of the premises tuning to a fine point. Architectural phenomenon or true urban miracle?
Find it! Flinders & South Dowling Sts, Surry Hills 2010.
The river under Sydney
Pssst! Few Sydney city workers realise the breast at which our founding fathers suckled is beneath our feet. Captain Arthur Phillip discovered the colony’s first freshwater stream in a swamp between Hyde Park and the Town Hall. Supplemented by springs in King and Spring Streets, the Eora campsite then dropped 30m through a series of waterfalls before hitting the salt water of the harbour. Although it’s been bridged, diverted, and buried beneath our
metropolis, the Tank Stream can today still be glimpsed in underground carparks, flooded basements and a final cascade to freedom at Circular Quay on the MCA side.
Find it! Check the sculpture by Lynne Roberts-Goodwin at cnr Alfred & Pitt Sts. Guided Tank Stream tours on 2 Nov. (02 8239 2211)
Flood from above
Pssst! Designer Donald Crowne installed a 167,000 litre water tower in the gold turret to make the 309-metre Sydney Tower one of the safest buildings in the world. It can now withstand 172km/h winds! Says maintenance boss Dan Whellens: “When a force like a squall shakes an object like a tower one way, the water acts as a counterbalance stabilising the 4,067 tonne structure.”
Find it! Cnr Pitt & Market Sts, Sydney 2000. (02 9333 9222)
The gazebo God built!Pssst! Mosman Council say it’s “a monument to happiness”. The dirty secret? It was built by mystery sect the Order of the Star of the East who got word Jesus himself was staging a second coming via the Heads. They built a marble amphitheatre but when JC never showed the Rotunda was quickly built to replace it.
Find it! Balmoral Beach, Balmoral 2088
Ghosts of Wynyard
Pssst! Wynyard has platforms 1–6 so why are only four in operation? “It goes back to 1932 when John Bradfield built the Harbour Bridge,” explains RailCorp’s Dick Day. “He envisaged and built railway tracks on both sides.” But when buses replaced trams, tracks became road and platforms a car park. “Passengers get used to a particular platform, so rather than renaming them, we left them how they were.”
Find it! George St, Sydney 2000
Kill Pixie Unmasked
Pssst! Local graffiti artist Kill Pixie is a big underground name – mainly because he illegally and anonymously spray paints the city’s streets like a delinquent Arthur Stace. But Time Out tracked him down and he agreed to an email chat via a third party. What the..? “Does Batman exist without Bruce Wayne?” he retorted. Kill Pixie’s reticence no doubt stems from his recent arrest for vandalism in Tokyo and a fine so huge he had to sell heaps of studio art to cover it. However, that notoriety kick-started a mainstream career and now he exhibits at Sydney’s coolest galleries. Is Sydney’s answer to Britain’s near-deified Banksy dead? “Kill Pixie is very much alive,” he told us.
Find it! Monster Children Gallery, 20 Burton St, Surry Hills 2010. (02 9332-2040)
Barnesy's Lost ARIA
Pssst! Finally we can ’fess up: our editor found it on awards night and it’s been on his mantle ever since. Jimmy, call him if you want it back (the base, anyway). Find him! (02 8239 5901)
Who are these masked men?
Pssst! Although their identities are secret, according to crime historian Peter Doyle, “this photo of undercover NSW police from the 30s was taken in the yard of Central Police Station at the behest of the police commissioner responding to claims Blind Freddy could pick a Sydney plainclothes cop out of a crowd because of their oafish and surly demeanour”. The mysterious photo was staged as an ID test for cops and press!
Find it! Justice & Police Museum, Cnr Phillip & Albert Sts, Sydney 2000. (02 9252 1144).